Modeling and Assessing Forged Concepts in Tourism and Hospitality Using Confirmatory Composite Analysis

Confirmatory composite analysis (CCA) was recently proposed as a viable approach to modeling and assessing forged concepts, i.e., theoretical concepts that emerge from their components within their environment. This study introduces CCA to the field of tourism and hospitality research and shows how CCA can be conducted using estimators known from structural equation modeling (SEM) with latent variables as implemented in common SEM software. It shows how emergent variables can be employed to model forged concepts and how CCA can be used for assessing them. In doing so, we explain the four major CCA steps comprising (1) model specification, (2) model identification, (3) model estimation, and (4) model assessment. To illustrate and guide scholars in applying CCA, we provide an empirical example from the field of tourism and hospitality research.